Rainer Goebel (Keynote)

Multi-Scale Functional Brain Imaging: New insights for biological models of cognitive functions

Abstract

Functional MRI (fMRI) provides windows at multiple scales on brain function. At a macroscopic (system) level, conventional fMRI reveals how perception, cognition and action are represented in areas and networks. Ultra-­high magnetic field fMRI at 7 Tesla and higher enables measurement of human brain activity with sub-­millimeter spatial resolution allowing to differentiate brain activation at a mesoscopic level of cortical layers and cortical columns. Recent experiments show that it is possible to map feature representations in specialised brain areas and to link sub-millimetre activity to cognitive phenomena such as perception, saliency, expectation and consciousness. The high signal-to-noise of ultra-high magnetic fields recently allowed us also to read out the “mind’s eye” from retinotopic activity patterns in early visual cortex. Besides describing relevant experiments, computational deep neuronal network models will be presented that may help to explain brain imaging and behavioural human data. The developed computational architectures are used to contribute to biologically inspired robotic systems.

Short CV

Rainer Goebel studied psychology and computer science in Marburg, Germany (1983-1988) and completed his PhD in 1994 at the Technical University Braunschweig, Germany. He received the Heinz Maier Leibnitz Advancement award in cognitive science in 1993 sponsored by the German minister of science and education for a publication on the binding problem, and the Heinz Billing award from the Max Planck society in 1994 for developing a software package for the creation and simulation of neural network models. From 1995-1999 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt/Main where he founded the functional neuroimaging group.
Since January 2000, he is a full professor for Cognitive Neuroscience at Maastricht University, Netherlands. He is founding director of the Maastricht Brain Imaging Centre (M-BIC) and the driving force of the recently established ultra-high field imaging center housing 3, 7 and 9.4 Tesla human MRI scanners. From 2008-2017 he was team leader of the “Modeling and Neuroimaging” group at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam. He has served as chair of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (2006-2008). In 2014 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2017 he became member of the German National Academy of Science (Leopoldina). He received funding for basic and applied neuroscience research including an ERC Advanced Investigators Grant (2011 - 2016) and a competitive grant from the Human Brain Project (HBP) in the ramp-up phase. He is involved now mainly in SP2 (Human Brain Organization) and heads the Co-Design Project 4 (CDP4) on visuo-motor integration.